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How Mobile Carriers Are Making Customers Pay For Safety

Like millions of other people, she had a stalker who had been harassing her by repeatedly calling and sending her offensive and mean-spirited texts. Not quite feeling that the problem warranted police action (while the texts were bothersome, they didn’t appear to be outright threatening), she called up her service provider, AT&T, and inquired about blocking the number from her phone. AT&T told her they’d be happy to block up to 30 numbers: If she paid a recurring $5 per month fee. Faced with the roadblock, she declined to opt in to the service, and continued to face daily harassment.

When my friend told me this story, I was astonished. It seemed to me that AT&T was charging customers for a safety feature. It also seemed like they were fundamentally miscategorizing the feature by bundling it as part of a parent-focused “Smart Control” package aimed at allowing parents to limit who can contact their childrens’ phones. And while the $5 fee may seem trivial to some, it can add up after many months, and create a psychological roadblock that could keep victims from taking action. This is especially true for the sorts of harassing calls and texts that folks like my friend endure that don’t necessarily rise to the level of police action or restraining orders. Even if they don’t feel physically threatened, it can still be extremely disruptive to somebody’s life to have their phone ring and see an unwanted name repeatedly pop up.

Concerned, I called up Jessica Miles, an assistant clinical professor at the family law clinic at Seton Hall University School of Law, and an expert on domestic violence-related legal issues. She agreed that the fees appear to create an unnecessary hurdle—especially when onc considers that it costs the phone companies nearly nothing to block numbers.

“The company is requiring a crime victim to pay to avoid further harassment or abuse,” Miles told me. “Requiring payment for safety is particularly problematic since research indicates that domestic violence disproportionately impacts low-income families.”

And it turns out AT&T isn’t alone in this. Of the four major nationwide carriers, T-Mobile also charges for blocking numbers under the same umbrella of parental control packages. It should be noted (and commended) that Sprint and Verizon allow users to block numbers for free.

And while a T-Mobile rep pointed out to me that most Android users can block numbers using the operating system’s baked-in blacklist feature, this does not help non-Android users, who have little recourse but to pay up. If you happen to use Google Voice for your primary phone number, the service also makes it easy to block unwanted numbers.

I’m of the opinion that safety should be frictionless and free, and I would encourage AT&T and T-Mobile to follow Sprint and Verizon’s lead in allowing customers to block numbers for free.

Below is a summary of the four major national carriers’ phone-blocking plans, and how to sign up for them.

AT&T: $5 per month to block calls and texts from up to 30 numbers. Subscribers can purchase the service here

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Thanks for raising this Seth, an important issue as we become increasingly attached to our smartphones and something that, as you point out, affects both children and adults. A smartphone is such a personal device there is something extra insidious about being victimised on it.

Wanted to let you and your readers know that the Mobiflock My Life service (www.mobiflock.com) is free and lets you block unlimited numbers for an unlimited time. It’s also got a couple of other cool security features thrown in. The full-featured parental control service, Mobiflock My Child, which includes timetables, location services, web and app blocking, is $5 a month – what the operators are charging just to block a few numbers.

While i agree that being harrassed by someone either by phone or in person, is a problem, I fail to see why people feel it is the responsibility of the service provider to protect people from it. Maybe it is simply a side effect of the Victim mentality that Americans seem to embrace. There is a simple solution, change your phone number. Stop expecting the phone company to address your issue, if someone is crossing over into dangerous activity the legal system is your avenue to pursue a resolution.

I think less a matter of folks expecting phone companies to protect them, and more a matter of phone companies charging for something that could save lives that costs them essentially zero. It strikes me as a moral issue.